Future Directions
Jan van Dijk and Manuel Castells call it a network society. Henry Jenkins says it’s a participatory culture. Perhaps it is a hive mind coming into being or what the visionary Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called the noosphere, a kind of thinking layer of the Earth (Vedro 2007, 24). Our post-postmodern culture is blossoming into a life-form that has yet to be named properly, but there is no question that communal identity is at its core, allowing humanity to use the digital structures of participation and the central nervous system of the Internet to create a larger whole.
Media-based imagined communities, particularly transnational ones, can help us understand how this is happening and what a future globally connected community may look like. The findings presented here attempt to refine the definition and qualities of media-based imagined communities and suggest some specific questions that emerged from the study that would warrant further research. To conclude, I present some small scale needs that transnational communities to help media companies working with them better serve their needs.
The Shape of Things to Come: Media-Based Imagined Communities
Based as they are in spaces rather than places, media-based communities can be characterized as deeply personal, highly responsive, and fundamentally unstable. Despite – or rather because of – these seemingly ephemeral qualities, media communities are remarkably robust and can be quite powerful.
As we saw in Identity, Media Imaginaries and the Transnational Gaze, urban imaginaries are composed of the everyday practices of the inhabitants of a place. Circumscribed by location, the vibrancy of the urban imaginary stems from the unexpected interactions of their inhabitants who live different lives and cycles. Media communities are imaginaries in an even truer sense, based in the practices, relationships, and values of their members as experienced over time. Because they are unbound by place, media communities are liberated to reach every corner of the earth and their markers of affiliation turn up everywhere.
As we’ve seen throughout this study, personal relationships are at the core of media communities. Since affiliation with a community is made through choice rather than locale, personal interests, values and relationships take precedence over cultural norms and rituals. Members choose the communities that offer them the deepest sense of personal engagement, whether it is with a topic, a person or a group. Thus, the emotional engagement of media communities has the potential to supplant place-based communities.
But one of the most dramatic distinctions is how quickly media-based imagined communities shift as information and ideas are exchanged across the globe in a matter of minutes. Just as no culture ever remains the same over time, media communities are always transforming. Rather than based on a cultural identity built up gradually over time as most nation-based communities have been, media communities are largely occupied with the present and respond to current events as dramatic flashpoints for the purposes of identity negotiation and re-composition. Thus, media communities are always morphing as members join and leave and community values are hashed out. Similarly, media communities can emerge seemingly from nothing in response to major events, and just as quickly dissolve after the need has been met.
While clearly the above factors play a significant role in making media communities volatile, the lack of control members experience over their media practices is another factor driving instability within imagined communities. The largely corporate entities of BSNs have created many of the repertoires of social action found in media communities, constraining users to the limits. It is important to recognize that while users can innovate at the margins of these repertoires, the majority of members re-inscribe the limited practices available on a daily basis. When members find one community not meeting their needs, they will have little compunction in switching to one that does. It is true, however, that media affiliations for information and purchases are much easier to switch than those for communication. Personal network engagement is therefore the key driver in choice of media community for communications.
Directions for Future Research
Each of the study components takes on a different aspect of transnational identity. The online survey results present a snapshot of the lifecycle and media habits of transnationals who have moved to the US. Future research could further probe the differences in length of residency, language origin and skill set, gender, and age that emerged in the results. All of these are indicative of very different types of engagement with media, particularly in terms of online networks.
The results of the online survey map against the other two section in very interesting ways. For example, in examining the world of branded social networks, it would be interesting to probe further to see if repertoires of action are biased towards women on networks like Facebook. Meanwhile, news consumption is higher among men. What types of articles are being written in the transnational space, and are they biased towards a male audience? Additionally, it seems that the framing and very lexicon used to discuss emerging digital media forms can create biases for use or adoption. For example, Mihaela perceives branded social networks as cold and impersonal, while Majid sees blogs as a passing teen fad. Additionally, while Twitter developed a scornful following in the popular media, Tumblr developed a similar but distinct model with little media attention but a dedicated following. To what extent do these conceptions influence individuals and publics, and how do they impact engagement with different mediums?
The second research component focuses on looking at how branded social networks limit the scope and meaning of their users’ actions. There are many directions this research indicates, from applying the model of repertoires of action to specific case studies as well as other forms of participatory media. Further research could focus on the specific repertoire of action around news sharing and discourse across platforms. APIs dictate many of these repertoires, so it would be worth looking at specific APIs to see what they make possible and whether engineers are favoring certain types of functionality over others. As companies like Facebook and Twitter internationalize their audiences, how are their APIs accommodating their new audiences? How will the expression of transnationality change as more of the world uses the same structures of expression and action?
Moving to the final ethnographic piece, I can say that these interviews were fascinating to conduct and I am grateful to each of the students who were so generous with their perspectives. Each one revealed the complexity of the global media imaginary and what it means to be a transnational user at a time when the choices are expanding in often confusing and unexpected ways. While so much of the architecture and structures of the Internet as it currently exists has been shaped by the US, it is increasingly obvious that this is about to change dramatically. Future research studies would certainly benefit from involving transnational communities not based in the US.
Transnational Community Needs
Essential news and information needs to be presented in many formats.
Online video is currently being hyped as the final frontier in web content, often suggested as a replacement for print particularly in advertising. But as this study shows, language divides shape media consumption, and presenting important news and information in print is essential to reaching specific populations who have a harder time with listening skills. Recent newcomers and language learners are more comfortable getting news and information in readable form as they become acclimated to new cultures. Before creating content, it is important to have a coordinated information presentation strategy that considers each audience and its needs, particularly if resources limit the information to one language.
The image is key to global popular culture.
When trying to reach transnational communities, focus on pictorial graphics over textual elements. The global imaginary is dominated by dreams and norms that interact in ways that have been explored across many disciplines, and the stories of several participants in this study reveal about the importance of the image in their own expressive and meaning-making activities. In terms of connecting with transnational audiences, it’s important to realize that graphic image-based communication can be more powerful than text alone.
Transnational communities want more connection.
Transnational communities have emotional attachments that need to be nurtured. They are hungry for stories that maintain personal connections to their home countries and remain invested in them through local ties and literal investments. Ethnic media outlets arose to serve this need, but many currently maintain a focus more on the communities being served within their local community. Cultivating partnerships with media organizations in the home country would be one way to deepen the richness of their content. Another specific recommendation for ethnic media is to reconsider their missions as content providers and consider themselves more in the light of community hubs. News articles already serve as places for conversation. Creating websites with rich community tools has tremendous potential to transform an ethnic media outlet from a place on the sidelines as observers to the virtual heart of a diaspora.
Digital structures of participation are key to group identities and actions.
Digital action is the heart of identity expression online, and the choices offered online audiences are carefully crafted. Looking at digital phenomena in terms of websites and traffic is simply not enough. We need to dig deeper to uncover and articulate the limitations set on communities by how actions are structured and the meaning behind the actions that ultimately inspires users.
Look for ways to expand repertoires of action in meaningful ways.
This study has already talked about some of the ways users have innovated and expanded on available actions to make them more meaningful. Expression of self-identity and community affiliation is at the heart of the examples given, and this guiding meaning-making activity remains at the core of many online activities. Application, web, and information designers could all look for ways to expand existing repertoires in the directions indicated by such innovations.
